The problem with Timeless Isle, and many other examples of Blizzard's map design, is that it fails to account for faction imbalance. Most servers right now are severely imbalanced towards one side, and for PVP servers especially the underdog has no chance at all to experience TI.

Timeless Isle was always going to get a lot of shit after 2-3 months because it's the sort of content that's really enjoyable for a day and then never again. That seems to be the root problem for both the OP and most of the other criticisms of it. As much as daily quests are terrible, it does gate content and extend the life cycle of areas. Timeless Isle with no gating had all it's knick-knacks discovered by most people who visited it within a day or two.

Curious to see if Blizzard will hold the same opinion on this 'dynamic' content once this patch cycle comes to an end.

Very interesting post OP. I guess you never played Everquest, becuase the whole game was like Timeless Isle for the first 7 years. In fact, it was nigh-impossible to even level up with-out a group to help you kill 1-2 mobs at a time. If you didn't have a group, you sat in the hub city yelling for one.

Timeless Isle is great for those players who enjoy running around with their friends or solo just looking for trouble to get into. I enjoy small sessions of Timeless Isle while solo, and long sessions with friends.

I just use the isle mostly to grind mobs to get my 50 lesser charms these days. Seems more mindless than running around doing dailies and moving between daily hubs. Personally, I would prefer the Golden Lotus dailies, especially the first 6 as a way to get 12 or more lesser charms, but they've been removed, so its better than nothing. Overall, for me, the timeless isle is just a place to hang out when I'm bored waiting for an lfr que for the most part. It works, but is nothing particularily fancy. That being said, its less annoying than having to repeat a barely randomized set of annoying daily quests on every toon every week. Personally, I 'd rather just hack up a bunch of turtles for an hour or 2. I have mixed feelings about the idea, but its something to do, which the game always has to have.

If your alts got MS and OS gear from the island then you got something positive out of it. Now you come here to complain that it was too easy for you. Maybe you feel like now that you aren't get any further use out of the island its time to right a contradictory post? You can sell the pet, you know, anywhere from 500-3000 gold. So you do get rewarded for grinding the reputation.

I would argue the worst idea created in any game ever was E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, or pretty much everything related to that one big-rig racing game that was released in a pre-alpha proof-of-concept state...

But maybe my memory's just better at reaching back than most peoples'.

As far as the Isle itself, I wasn't wowed by it but the various goodies are fun to chase after in short bursts before I start getting bored. Ditto for gearing up my alts once they hit 90 so I'm not rolling into Warlords in Townlong quest greens.

E.T. was a terrible Atari game, definitely one of the worst, maybe close competition with Swordquest: Earthworld anyways. My sister and I lovingly referred to that aweful game as Mr. Et - lol

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Originally Posted by Immitis

the idea of timeless isle isnt to grind coins to buy things.

the coin grind is there for people who like long grinds like the bonewhite primal raptor, the insane achievement, ect ect.

theres a couple things casuals can buy if they are low on luck but overall its there to be completed by grinders or as a long term goal.

the point of the isle is a bunch of small events, a rare popping up, some kind of item showing up that lets you fight someone, little treasure chests hidden away, secret doodads, a bit of platforming.

its basically a mish mash of all kinds of shit like a little party everywhere you go.

timeless isle was basically a shitstorm prototype of warlords.

think of draenor as being a giant, less compact timeless isle with all those rares, all those treasure chests, all those doodads and npcs and hidden thingamabobs spread out over entire zones

I would love it if the entire gameplay world had all kinds of hidden stuff to find as you played. How many times I swam and explored the bottom of a lake or the edge of the ocean just hoping there'd be something hidden to find, like a treasure chest or something. Unfortunately, until now, that was living in a dreamworld of Pitfall Hary If they do make all of Draenor full of hidden goodies and random stuff, I think that would make for great gameplay. The only limitation of the Timeless Isle idea, is its still a relatively small area, and only a tiny piece of the gameplay world.

I agree with pretty much everything except the subjectline. The TI got boring after the first week, the rep and achievement grinds are horrible, hate the tigers and mobs everywhere, hate the lack of direction and story, but it isn't the worst idea in any game ever. It sucks, it's just not the worst, like, ever.

The horrible community is why LFR exists, and why there are such catchup mechanisms.
There are some aspects which turn it into an artificial grind, a huge timesink but those are other issues altogether.
If the playerbase was less fussed about gear as some measure of a player then many people otherwise struggling to commit might get more opportunities to earn the gear from more traditional content.
Raiding has become numbers driven, and not about the fun or the experience.

Originally Posted by DeadmanWalking

Your forgot to include the part where we blame casuals for everything because blizzard is catering to casuals when casuals got jack squat for new content the entire expansion, like new dungeons and scenarios.

Originally Posted by Reinaerd

T'is good to see there are still people valiantly putting the "Ass" in assumption.

Oh no guis! They gief us 496 epics that were relevant to content I raided a year ago oh noes! Really I don't see why people care about Timeless Isle. If you don't like it, don't go there simple. It's really there to give alts a helping hand rather than anything, because I swear to god I can pick up any class and play it better than people who are currently raiding SoO normal.

1. The items from the vendor are convinient for those missing that pesky piece that never seems to drop.

2. 496 items are incredibly easy to obtain, sure, but with even less effort, you can clear ToT normal and get 522s or do SoO lfr and get 528. 496 is equivalent to ilvl 450 was in 5.0 (that's lvl 85 twink items mind you). It really, really, really isn't "giving free epix away". 496 with bad itemization half the time and less sockets than normal gear. You could even argue that getting gear is the hardest it has been since TBC. There aren't any vendors that give you raiding equivalent gear for valor points anymore. That's the first time in a very, very long time.

3. Seriously, 496 is crap.

4. I'm pretty sure the 50k coins is there for those with one single piece that refuses to drop, so they can take a chance for a 535 item meanwhile.

5. Adding rare mobs was a fun feature. I think most people would be done with Timeless Isle 10 times faster if there were only chest and coins. The point is that you have to camp the specific rare mob you want, or run around the place like a madman to try and get a variety of kills.

6. It's supposed to be a hostile enviroment. Very, very hostile. It's an island to trial the greatest champions on Azeroth. There's one oathguard and 2 berserkers able to charge you (or 2+1 berserkers?) and a molten guardian (very easy to avoid if on a mount) on the trail towards the demi-God Ordos. If you're not a hero prepared to fight a mighty demi-God, then maybe you should stay off the trail leading to him?

7. You don't have to grind mobs if you don't have to. If you're an achievement hunter, it's likely that you enjoy grinds like these. If you don't, well then you're not cut out to be an achievement hunter. I hunted achievements before and the grindy ones were no doubt the most fun. We're all different. Just because you don't like grindy achievements doesn't mean there should be none at all. This is the ONLY reputation in MoP that you have to grind yourself to (Black Prince doesn't count, most people got that automatically when doing "mandatory" dailies) and I appreciate that a lot since I love those.

8. You're actually complaining about world PvP? Well I'm sorry you don't like PvP. I assume you're playing on a PvE server and that you're automatically greened? Because I don't understand you if you play on a PvP server.

9. I've seen a lot of people with the bigger bag achievement. It's also very, very easy to jump on a server that isn't very populated and get someone's Real ID to get them to invite you. I'm sure that's a small effort if you're that interested in getting the achievement. Also, a lot of people already had a lot of those items since a lot of the really rare ones were available before 5.4.

10. Not everyone is like you. Some people like grinds. I love grinds. I hate dailies. Do I think everything should be a grind? Of course not, I'm not as narrow-sighted as you.

They only put in the gear tokens to help your alts start raiding the end of the expansion raid faster. Trust me, the next expansion when they start something like this it won't drop stuff like this.

It's an amazingly lazy catchup mechanism. They literally hand out armor tokens in chests. In previous expansions, they used dungeons (the 3 ICC and Dragon Soul dungeons) for the same purpose. That worked fine, it wasn't an obvious cop-out, and the dungeons were actually fun. The devs agree that not creating dungeons for MoP was a mistake.

The problem is that they didn't intend to do any catchup mechanisms in MoP, so they didn't have the dungeons ready. Remember back in the beginning of MoP, when they talked about how they intended players to "progress" through old content to get to current content? And they intended to speed that up a bit, but still wanted you to grind T14 raids before entering T15, and so on. This was a terrible idea and they pivoted completely away from it in 5.4. So they needed a catchup that would appeal to casuals, didn't require raiding old content, and yet would quickly allow players to enter T16 raids. That's what led to the Timeless Isle.

Thing is, the designers were just incredibly pleased with the Timeless Isle design. Even before it was released, they decided that the next expansion would be full of the same kind of content.

Is an undirected grind truly better than directed dailies? In my mind, no. It's not necessarily worse, either. Both are grinds designed to artificially stretch out content, and I see straight through them. There shouldn't be any grinds at all, but barring that, a mix of dailies and timeless-style content, with 5.1-style story sprinkled throughout, would be far better than relying entirely on one or the other.

Bit of an overstatement to call it the worst thing ever, but its really not that bad. Its nice that its a lot more than just another quest daily hub like Firelands or Isle of Thunder where you have nothing to do after dailies or hunting rares.

Yeah sure the reps and achievements are grindy but what isnt now-a-days?

Also, i496 epics caters to no one but alts and people who have been away from the game for a patch or two. i496 epics are nothing compared to the i528s you can get in SoO LFR (i536 if you item upgrade). Hell, i496 is garbage if you wanna compare it to the gear you can get in SoO; Flex (i540), Normal (i553), or Heroic (i566). Thats a 30-70 ilvl difference which may not sound like much but makes a pretty big difference on the meters.

"If the people who are trying to destroy this world aren't taking a day off, then why should I?"

Your post is full of over-exaggerations and tainted with copious amounts of frustration. You've touched on some points that didn't work, but most stem from your inability to grasp what the Isle was about.

Originally Posted by Battlebeard

The idea of Timeless
The only other things you can buy, which was the only items I cared for was One single pet, One single mount and a teleport trinket. And they all required reputation that takes forever to grind. In conclusion, worthless currency, which was boring to grind and by far not worth the effort.

The Timeless Coins were never the limiting factor, the reputation was. Emperor Shaohao is a reputation that is grinded by simply killing mobs barring the one daily quest that awards 275 (after guild perks). Now, the Timeless Coins were meant to be purely a catch-up mechanism. Additionally, because of RNG, a lot of players don't always receive drops they want. With the coins, it's an additional chance at acquiring the one or two missing pieces and/or trinkets.
Also, sounds like you're not someone who appreciates the collection/purchase of vanity items.
Of the 42 items available for purchase with Timeless Coins:
-12 are vanity items
-3 are pets (counting the key to the Hozen Chest as a pet)
-Scroll of Challenge is a chance at the Elixir of Ancient Knowledge
-PvP item
The items available for purchase with Timeless Coins don't appeal to you because:
a)They don't give power since you have gear above i496
b)You don't prefer vanity items.

Now let's talk about 'not worth the effort'. Let's be honest, there is no effort in acquiring Timeless Coins. A monkey running his face across a keyboard can acquire enough Timeless Coins. You're angry that the cooler item, the mount, is gated behind rep that's grindy to obtain. If you've played since around launch, this is the first time you're encountering a grindy rep with little to no point? Looking at your armoury, I see you never leveled Shen'dralar rep, but you did level Ravenholdt. What was the point of that? You leveled your Goblins, but what's the point of that. Sometimes, a grindy rep is just grindy for no point or purpose than to give players something to work towards little by little everyday. You've done some of the previous ones for even less incentives, but now you're complaining because this one is taking more time than you're willing to invest.

Originally Posted by Battlebeard

"Huolon 100%... Houlon dead"
Second is the rare mobs. Why was it necessary to add so many?something should always be up, but NO. It's just ridiculously boring to run between corpses with no rewards for it either if you manage to reach them.

What is wrong with adding more rare mobs? They are rare mobs. They shouldn't always be up. It is ridiculously boring to run between corpses, so stop running around like a chicken with its head cut off and camp a rare. I do not know if you've realized, but there is a pattern to their respawning. Stop following General Chat and be intelligent about your camping.
Addon to help with rare hunting: Rare Coordinator

Originally Posted by Battlebeard

This place sucks...
Thirdly is the terrain and design. Can you go anywhere without aggroing something? Doubt it... The trail up to Ordos Sanctuary is a joke. Fall down and you have to run a mile to get back up...I just think it could have been more accessible. Also the tauren enemies of Ordos wander the roads and guard entryways. Whatever happened to "If you follow a road you are less likely to encounter monsters"?...

For someone who's tired of the Timeless Isle and is so ready to trash it, you have no idea where the useful items are. You have no idea there's an item called Scuttler's Shell Get it, use it, love it. And either explore the Isle more or visit Wowhead or WoWDB.

You also might want to use a Breathalyzer if you're randomly falling off the trail up to Ordon Sanctuary. You're either drunk or you're pointing your mount in a general direction and alt-tabbing out to a different window. No everything can be, or should be, the Great Plains. Varying terrains are good.

Once again, use Scuttler's Shell and you can bypass everything. Sticking to the road and being safe hasn't been true for world content added in patches. It wasn't true in Quel'danas where only the base and path leading up to the instances were safe; wasn't true in Molten Front once you were past the base, wasn't true Isle of Thunder, isn't true up the path to Ordon Sanctuary. If you're delving into more dangerous parts of the Isle, be prepared to deal with danger.

Also, YOU ARE A ROGUE.

Originally Posted by Battlebeard

...and you never leave it
Next and most importantly is the never, ever, ever, ever, ever ending grinds.If you are an achievement hunter or just interested in doing as much as possible in game or feel the need to do the grinds for any other reason, you will have a bad time doing so.

Grinds are worthless unless they are meaningful. Linear, repetitive and boring grinds like the ones on the island are completely worthless.

Then there is the reputation grind of course. So boring I can't find words. Why was this grind needed when the reward is a not so cool mount and nothing more...

If you're an achievement hunter, or just interested in doing as much as possible, or feel the need to do the grinds, how dare Blizzard require you to invest a little more, either in the form of time or effort? Achievements are optional content. EVERYTHING from the rares on the Isle except the Burdens of Eternity have absolutely zero effect on player power. If you want everything in the game, if you want optional content, if you want feel the need to do the grind, pay up. The currency is time/effort.

Yes, grinds are worthless unless meaning. And a lot of reps in this game are worthless. I mentioned it before, but will do so again: you leveled Ravenholdt reputation to exalted. Complete and utter grind with zero rewards, unless you count Insane in the Membrane, which you don't have. Steamwheedle Cartel, again, another utter grind. Emperor Shaohao isn't the first grind in the game and, very likely, it won't be the last. What's changed now? Too much work? Too boring? If you've managed to loot lockbox after lockbox after lockbox from Blackrock Spire and turned them in at Hillsbrad Foothills or freed a goblin over and over again in Dire Maul, this should be a piece of cake! Why is this grind not 'worth it' if previous ones were?

Originally Posted by Battlebeard

The biggest turd ever laid
I speak of course about "Going to Need a Bigger Bag". What kind of sadistic, sick people came up with this one. This achievement require you to collect a trillion rare items which mainly drop from the rares, which I already mentioned, are almost always dead. I have only seen a few people in the world who has done this and these people are top 50 worldwide achievement collectors as well.

An insane grind based on RNG...

I can't find more words of hate for this achievement but anyone who is going for it will see that it's a living hell.

Now you're just whining because an achievement is hard/based on luck/grindy. This was introduced by the same sadistic, sick people that came up with Bloodthirsty (which you don't have), Insane in the Membrane (which you don't have), Hero of Shattrath (which you don't have), Seat of Knowledge (which you do have!) etc. See the trend? As you said, only the people around top 50 worldwide achievement collectors have achieved this one. It's not for you. If you want easier achievements, go kill Heroic: Lei Shen in a pug, there are plenty going around on OpenRaid. If you want an achievement that's a surer test of skill, go kill Heroic: Siegecrafter Blackfuse. If you want less RNG achievements, go capture some carts in Deepwind Gorge and you'll get it soon.
Not all achievements require the same level of effort and/or time investment. Yogg 0 awarded 10 points as did /love-ing random critters. Not all achievements are made the same. Some are points waiting for you to stumble upon (falling 65 yards without falling) and some are cruel (Going to Need a Bigger Bag). Deal with it.

You have some good points, I will admit that. Lack of mobs in higher population realms being one. Spawns for normal mobs depending on population density would greatly alleviate this situation.
Some rares, Blizzard has agreed, weren't implemented properly. The Imperial Python, Monstrous Spineclaw fall among that category.

However, to call the Timeless Isle the worst idea in any game is, frankly, childish. It was an experiment and like all experiments, some parts were successful and others not so. As a whole, the island was a success, providing Blizzard a petri dish to test various ideas like semi-gated harder world bosses, dynamic events (Beer Event, Captain Zvezdan), multiple modes of transportation (gliders, Albatross), monster difficulty gradient, various rare mob mechanics, etc. As mentioned, not all were successful, but most were. And it is nowhere near an abysmal failure you're making it out to be.